What is IBC?
It is the Infinite Banking Concept that was pioneered by R Nelson Nash. It is a process that uses the product of a properly structured Participating Whole Life Insurance policy. Done right, it is a lifetime tool than can and should be used repeatedly and then will have a tax-free death benefit when you eventually pass away.
The problem is we have our dollars come in and most of them leave fairly quickly. For most people, over 90% walks out the door in the way of taxes, lifestyle and debt. For those fortunate enough to retain up to 10%, we try to figure out how to maximize that to take us to the end of life and hopefully take care of our beneficiaries.
When we study wealthy families, we see that they maintain control of a higher percentage of their income than the masses. It is a matter of purposeful living and not luck.
We are the Infinite Banking Canada Group and we have a mission to show Canadians a better way. We are collaborators across Canada who have qualified for the Authorized Infinite Banking designation that is issued by the Nelson Nash Institute. At the time of this article, there are less than 50 of us Canada wide. This group is dedicated to maintaining the standards of the founder R. Nelson Nash who discovered and practiced the Infinite Banking Concept. We have all gone through a course of study and been mentored in how to show Canadians a better way to be more efficient and maintain control of their finances.
Why Should I Use It?
The concept is that you will capitalize (build up) contributions in a properly structured policy that will generate cash values that are accessible to you, the owner. As Nelson said, “your money has to reside somewhere”, so having it deposited in this type of structure (where you the owner determines the access) will give you many advantages going forward. Unlike traditional financial advice, we teach you how to grow, control and protect your dollars in a tax exempt environment.
How so? We mentioned capitalizing. Like any banking system, it needs to be built up by deposits.
Unlike traditional vehicles such as the RRSP, your money is not in jail. What do I mean?
I have a set of 40-year old twins who I interviewed. During the process, I discovered Bob was a good client match but Bart was not. They both worked as lawyers at the same firm. Bob and I went through our process and determined that Infinite Banking was a great match for him so we got him started on his journey. Bart went with a traditional advisor and decided he wanted to make $25000 RRSP contributions. Bob deposited $25000 in his plan with me.
Bob starts out with an initial death benefit of $750,000 while Bart starts out with a $25,000 taxable deposit. If they passed away early, there was a significant difference for each family left behind.
Bob is building his system steadily and his access to cash values as well as death benefits increase each years. Bart averages 10%/yr for 5 years accumulating $208,153. He tells Bob he’s being dumb by “investing in insurance” and he should come and see Bart’s advisor instead. Bob tells him he’s happy with his choice. A recession hits in year 6 and the economy and stock markets contract rapidly (a 25% drop). The law firm has a drastic drop in business and billable hours are severely cut.
Most folks are panicking (including Bart). His RRSP is now worth $156,000 and he finds himself in need of $50,000. His house foundation has cracked and needs to be repaired along with having to pay off his Christmas trip he charged to his credit card. He’s been enjoying life and has his $40,000 line of credit maxed out so he’s got very limited options.
He realizes that to get $50,000 in his hands, he will need to withdraw $65,000. To make matters worse, that will be added to his income come tax time and he may owe another 17% (approx. $11,000 more in taxes). The timing is terrible as he’s down 25% on his investments and doing so will lock in the losses.
He is so stressed out that he asks Bob if they can hang out and chat.
He asks Bob why he’s so calm and Bob explains that his cash values keep on growing every day. In fact, he just accessed $100,000 against his cash values to take advantage of a few opportunities. Bob told Bart that he bought some great quality stocks at a deep discount with $25,000. He used another $25,000 as a loan and took a secured position on a person’s mortgage who had lost his job and was in danger of losing his home. He set that up at 15% which was a deal that the person jumped at, considering his other option was a 25% loan.
Bob let Bart know he bought into a business that was in a cash crunch at a huge discount. The business had good sales but the recession hit the cash flow hard. He invested $50,000 and got a stake in ownership (more than double what he could have even 1 year earlier).
He let Bart know that there was no taxation on his access and that he didn’t even have to worry about payments for the next little bit. The loan was completely unstructured. Loan payments and the timing of those were completely up to Bob. Bart couldn’t believe his ears. He thought he had done the right things and he just took a massive hit to stay afloat. Conversely, Bob was able to access cash, make investments and get noticeably ahead.
Bart asked Bob to reintroduce him to me. He wanted to experience this stress free way of life that has Bob thriving and he felt his way was a huge letdown. We agreed to meet. I let Bart know this is a process that requires his commitment and he agreed. I would work with him if he agreed to my coaching which included some reading and videos to get a baseline of this process.
Most important was that Bob didn’t have to touch the asset so it continued to grow uninterrupted and without taxation. What was Bob’s rate of return in the policy? It doesn’t matter. I understand that this is hard for most people to grasp as we’ve been sold this way of thinking for a long time. I can say that it was less than Bart’s average rate of return. Did that matter? No. It was the right vehicle and continues to be so by having uninterrupted compounding for life.
You have a chassis that will grow over time and you determine access. This is done by a combination of deposits and dividends. This increases the face amounts and as a direct result…the cash values. You are contractually guaranteed access to available cash when you want to without having to qualify. As your policy system builds, you choose how and when to access the funds.
We set these up with Canadians every week.
Do you want a stress free way of life?
Do you want access to cash without having to interrupt the growth of your asset? Do you want tax-advantaged access for opportunities or emergencies while controlling payment amounts, frequency etc.? Do you too want to become your own banker? Do you want intergenerational wealth?
Contact us and we can help you get started on a stress free, way of life. We can help you to be part of the IBCanada Group family. We can help you start to build an Infinite Asset that will take care of you for life and those who come after you.
